sufjan stevens - i walked

i walked
because you walked
but i won't probably get very far

kate nash, the nicest thing

I wish I was your favourite girl.

I wish you couldn't figure me out, but you'd always want to know what I was about.

I was I was the last thing on your mind before you went to sleep.

Basically I wish that you loved me.

I wish we could see if we could be something.

lisa hannigan - i don't know

If you walk my way
I will keep my head
We will feel our way
Through the dark
Though I don't know you
I think that I would do
I don't fall easy at all

on love songs

who do you write songs for now that you have tossed me aside? whose words do you steal now that you have no right to mine?

yael naim - far, far

Far, far, there's this little girl. She was praying for something to happen to her. Everyday she writes words and more words just to spit out the thoughts that keep floating inside. And she's strong when the dreams come 'beause they take her, cover her; they are all over. The reality looks far now, but don't go -

How can you stay outside?
There's a beautiful mess inside.

Far, far, there's this little girl. She was praying for something good to happen to her. From time to time there are colours and shapes dazzling her eyes, tickling her hands. They invent a new world with oil skies and aquarel rivers. But don't you run away already - please, don't go.

How can you stay outside?
There's a beautiful mess inside.

Far, far there's this little girl. She was praying for something big to happen to her. Every night she hears beautiful, strange music - it's everywhere, there's nowhere to hide. But if it fades, she begs, "Oh Lord, don't take it from me, don't take it"; she says, "I guess I'll have to give it birth."

Just look at yourself now, deep inside - deeper than you ever dared.

fragments

I once read the sentence, 'I lay awake all night with toothache, thinking about toothache and about lying awake'. That's true to life. Part of every misery is, so to speak, the misery's shadow or reflection: the fact that you don't merely suffer but have to keep on thinking about the fact that you suffer. I not only live each endless day in grief, but live each day thinking about living each day in grief.

And grief still feels like fear. Perhaps, more strictly, like suspense. Or like waiting; just hanging about waiting for something to happen.

* * *

Don't hold yourself like that cause you'll hurt your knees.
Well I kissed your mouth and back - but that's all I need.
Don't build your world around / volcanoes melt you down...

And what I am to you is not real,
What I am to you, you do not need,
What I am to you is not what you mean to me:
You give me miles and miles of mountains and I'll ask for the sea.

Don't throw yourself like that in front of me.
I kissed your mouth, your back - is that all you need?
Don't drag my love around / volcanoes melt me down...

I kissed your mouth.
You do not need me.

* * *

Grief is different. Grief has no distance. Grief comes in waves, paroxysms, sudden apprehensions that weaken the knees and blind the eyes and obliterate the dailiness of life.



(C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed; Damien Rice, 'Volcano'; Joan Didion, The Year of Magical Thinking)

ben harper - amen omen

there is a boy playing guitar in my living room right now. i wish it was you but it's not and it's absolutely breaking me, still.

*****

i don't know where you came from
and i don't know where you've gone.
old friends become old strangers
between the darkness and the dawn.

amen omen, will i see your face again?
amen omen, can i find the place within
to live my life without you?

i listen to a whisper slowly drift away,
silence is the loudest parting word you never say.
i put your world into my veins
but now a voiceless sympathy is all that remains.

angus and julia stone - mango tree

sweet, gorgeous, lovely. an old song that never tires.

from her lips i heard her say
can i have you
caught up on what to say
i said you do
i said you do
i said you do.

rachael yamagata - be be your love

beirut - nantes

gosh. this is one of my favourite songs at the moment and this clip is just gorgeous. i am a little bit in love with zach...the skinny trendy mop-haired twenty-year-old musical maverick appeal, with a healthy dash of relaxed eccentricity. gets me every time.

two friends of mine

one who has loved so much that he never wants to love again, who is living holed up in his head so he doesn't have to occupy his heart. escaping the breathless and claustrophobic. and who is writing songs bloated with tired thoughts. i'm watching him pray for emotional fortitude in silence and hearing him make silly, loud jokes so he doesn't have to think about those heavy things in there. he is full of warnings.

another who loves so much that he is haunted with hope. someone who trips more quickly and heavily than the others, and yet with more integrity. who surprises with wisdom and a servant heart on a daily basis, surfs above the crowd with funny voices and one-liners; is a gift. doesn't know it yet but knows more than he should. he sends midnight messages that are simple and longing and kind and that make me want to explode things in the sky for him but i can't.

the first thing i think to do is to send them songs that suit them.

ray lamontagne - be here now

one of my favourite songs. it is calm and collected and sombre and tense.

damien rice - volcano

adele - hometown glory